US CDC says finds smallpox vials from 1950s in FDA storage room

CHICAGO (Reuters) -The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention said on Tuesday they found smallpox vials from the
1950s in a Food and Drug Administration storage building in
Bethesda, Maryland, and transferred them to the CDC's
high-containment laboratory in Atlanta on July 7.

The CDC said there is no evidence that the vials have been
breached, and biosafety officials have so far not found any
evidence of risk to lab workers or the public.

The mishandling of smallpox, a highly infectious agent,
follows the CDC's recent mishap in which the agency believed it
may have transferred live anthrax samples to a CDC lab that was
not equipped to handle them, potentially exposing dozens of
employees to the pathogen.

In the case of smallpox, the vials were discovered in an
unused portion of a storage room of an unsecured FDA lab on the
National Institutes of Health's campus in Bethesda, Maryland.
The NIH on July 1 reported the presence of the vials to the
CDC's Division of Select Agents and Toxins.

The CDC said scientists discovered the vials while preparing
to move the lab to the FDA's main campus. The vials appear to
date to the 1950s.

The smallpox specimens have since been transferred to a CDC
high-containment facility in Atlanta.

The CDC said it has notified the World Health Organization
about the discovery. The United States and Russia are the two
official repositories for smallpox designated by the WHO.